加萨·阿鲁瓦利亚 Jassa Ahluwalia

Jassa (born 12th September 1990) is a British actor. He is set to appear as David, battling against Goliath, in US TV epic The Bible this Easter. He recently played Rocky in BBC Three's hit new comedy series Some Girls. He also appeared as a guest lead in Casualty in October 2012. In addition to his screen work Jassa performed as Peter Pan at The Camberley Theatre over Christmas. Jassa is also a keen singer-songwriter; in January he released his album All Your Letters.

Jassa Ahluwalia’s desire to perform revealed itself when he was three years old while attending his father’s cousin’s wedding in India. Intoxicated by the bhangra rhythm and the adoring crowd of guests that had formed around him he danced and danced and couldn’t be stopped. He eventually rested when his mother, fearing Jassa was going to pass out from heat exhaustion, persuaded the dhol player to stop playing.

From then on Jassa’s confidence grew and with the love and support of his parents he immersed himself in school performances. At home Jassa was surrounded by his parents’ eclectic music tastes, varying from classical to jazz to hard rock and pop, and was captivated by anything that included big all singing all dancing set pieces. Most notably Jassa used to repeatedly watch the Jim Carey film The Mask, making the phrase “dancing like The Mask” commonplace in the Ahluwalia household.

Owing to his grandfather being an accomplished primary and secondary school maths teacher, Jassa studied hard at home as well as at school and so enjoyed academic success. He attended Launde Primary School in Oadby, Leicester, where his grandfather taught. The then headmistress, Sonia Hudson, recognised Jassa’s potential early on and urged his parents to send him to the local private school after finishing his primary education. It was while he was at Launde however, that Jassa was scouted by ex-Royal Ballet principal dancer Graham Fletcher who taught and helped to run the local Arts in Education dance schemes.